Financial Crimes Against the Elderly

The elderly are the fastest growing segment of our society and they are also
an important part of our country's economy. We are living longer but we as a
society do not always recognize this population as being at risk. America's
growing senior population is uniquely vulnerable to a broad range of
exploitation and abuse. Financial crimes in particular are targeted at seniors
with alarming frequency, and are all too often successful.

For a number of reasons it is hard to measure how widespread the problem is.
States vary in their definition of "elderly," there is no national
repository of crime statistics like the FBI uniform crime reports or the
national victimization survey specific to elder financial abuse, and there is
widespread agreement that fraud in general is dramatically underreported. The
few existing studies of consumer fraud estimate that between 20 to 60 percent of
adult Americans report being a victim or attempted victim of fraud. In 1998, the
National Center on Elder Abuse estimated that nearly one third of all elder
abuse cases involved financial exploitation. In 2000, the US Senate Special
Committee on Aging reported $40 billion in losses to telemarketing fraud.

Over the past year, The COPS Office has invested nearly $2 million nationwide
to address this major crime problem. The COPS Office is expanding its support of
the National Sheriffs Association for the national
Triad program. The Triad program partners law enforcement and senior
citizens together to reduce crime and the fear of crime. COPS funding will be
used to expand and enhance the Triad model nationwide by increasing the number
of communities that participate in Triad and by increasing the number of
training opportunities and scope of national support programs. The COPS Office
is also providing assistance to Virginia Attorney General's office to expand
their state Triad program. And, COPS is providing major funding for the Iowa
Elderly Fraud Prevention Program to increase the resources devoted to
prosecuting those who victimize senior citizens.